This year was a worthy continuation of the last: countless beautiful runs in the forest, alone or with my greyhound, in snow, rain, mud, winter, summer.
A Stubborn Winter
The winter months brought unusually harsh weather, and what made it worse was how long it dragged on. I had to take several forced breaks. In early February, a fever knocked me out for the first time in ten years. Then the weather took over. I noted that after February 20th, it snowed for days. By the 26th, temperatures had dropped to minus eleven. Then came a snowfall so heavy I simply couldn’t run: over thirty centimeters on the pavements and roads, even in town. I couldn’t even reach my alternative route by the lake — and since I walked to work, getting there was hard enough on its own.
Back to Racing
For March, I’d planned a race: a four-day, two-hundred-and-twenty-kilometer relay. As part of a team, I ran the first two days: sixteen and twenty-one kilometers. The lakeside atmosphere at the end of winter was wonderful — much of the route ran alongside reeds, right by the water’s edge. The half-marathon finish made me work, though: the finish line sat at the top of a long climb, and I’d lost my hill legs. But it was good to be racing again, a year and a half after my last marathon. The marathon distance, however, I didn’t miss. That much was enough.
The Calf That Wouldn’t Heal
In spring, a calf strain struck again, in my right leg, in the forest. This time the pain wasn’t severe, so I went out the next day as if nothing had happened — it barely hurt anymore. I shouldn’t have. It flared up again, and this time I skipped two days, not even Nordic walking, to make sure it healed. But even that was too soon: the pain came back harder at the same spot. I hadn’t given it enough time. Two more rest days plus Nordic walking — and finally that was enough.
At forty-nine, I was thinking more and more about the possibility that this was the new normal. Maybe I had to protect my body now. I didn’t want a minor strain to become a serious injury.
In July, I went on a four-or-five-day hiking trip: a hundred and ten kilometers of Nordic walking. Far less taxing on the joints, excellent as exercise, though it doesn’t come close to what running gives you. But better than nothing. In my mind, I’m already preparing for the day when that’s all I’ll be able to do. I sincerely hope that day is a long way off.
Scotland
In September, work sent me to Scotland for a full month. Three locations: Stirling, Melrose, and a few days in Edinburgh at the end. I was thrilled — mainly for the English-language practice, but also for the running: a new country on my map.
I remember running in the forest the morning before departure and getting caught in such a downpour in the last two kilometers that I nearly missed the plane. I figured it was warm-up for Scotland, where I expected to get soaked regularly. Spoiler: the weather was surprisingly good.
I landed in Stirling and spent two weeks there, so I got to know the terrain well. I found an excellent route. Near the turnaround point, I left the town behind and saw for the first time in my life that green I’d heard so much about: the emerald shade on the distant hills was staggering. I stopped for minutes and stared. I photographed it, but my phone couldn’t capture the real color. Later I made it further north too, and the landscapes were extraordinary. What struck me most was the absence of large forests — but that’s precisely what made it unique. If the hills had been covered in trees, it could have been anywhere. This was unmistakably Scotland.
The second location was Melrose, near the English border. The jewel there was the ruined abbey. I found excellent running terrain and started every morning with a run. There was a garden where I could hang my clothes to dry without bothering anyone — a great relief. The weather was good throughout: just a drizzly mist and one light rain the entire time. I’d brought rain shoes as a precaution and ran in them the whole trip. Afterward I retired them — the month had brought them to their mileage limit.
The third stop was Edinburgh, where there was far more to see, so I only managed one run — but I wouldn’t have missed it. The canal-side bike path was perfect. In total: twenty-five runs, two hundred and fifty kilometers that month. The trip barely dented my monthly volume.
Back to Paradise
Coming home, I returned to the morning forest runs with great joy. That setting surpassed everything. The greyhound runs continued too, with new adventures: once, from a distance, I saw her eating something. No chance of reaching her in time — I shouted for her to stop and come, but she ignored me completely and kept wolfing it down. When she finished, she licked her lips and kept her distance for a while: she knew she’d done wrong, but whatever it was must have been delicious. When she was young, a sharp word would send her bolting away from whatever she’d found. Later she figured out that even if I started running toward her, she had plenty of time to finish and escape. She’d initially assumed I could match her speed; she learned otherwise. Fortunately, she was never harmed by any of it.
In the forest, she didn’t care about obstacles — she’d crash through every bush, every patch of tall grass. If there was tall grass, she’d choose it over the smooth path every time. The result was constant minor injuries, especially to her legs. She needed near-constant care, but nothing serious happened. The greyhound is a beautiful but very fragile dog, with its thin legs and thin skin.
The NEAR End of Paradise
At the end of the year, I had one more chance to run by the lake where I’d raced in spring — a different section this time. Then the year closed without further incident. I didn’t reach three thousand kilometers that year, though I’d done about two hundred more in Nordic walking, which I didn’t count.
But “without incident” wasn’t true for my personal life. Significant changes had begun, and their consequence, sadly, was that I had to leave this paradise running terrain behind and return to a big-city environment. More on that in the next entry.
2018: 295 runs / 2,969 km
Since 2002: 4,117 sessions / 43,923 km